Motivating Influenza Vaccination Among Young Adults: The Effects of Public Service Advertising Message Framing and Text Versus Image Support

A common challenge facing public health practitioners and social marketers is how best to frame and present benefit–risk information in campaigns that aim to change perceptions and increase acceptance of health recommendations, such as vaccinations. Given that public service advertisements and brand promises are often core components of social marketing and health communication efforts, this study examined whether, and how, framing and the use of text or image support to convey influenza vaccination brand promises affected college-attending young adults’ beliefs and intentions regarding influenza vaccination. PSAs that varied with respect to gain or loss frame and type of support provided (i.e., image vs. text-supported) were used as the stimulus material. The findings indicated two pairings performed equally well with respect to the outcome measures used. A gain-framed image-supported PSA and a loss-framed text-supported PSA were both associated with the highest levels of positive affect toward the PSA, positive attitude toward flu vaccination, flu vaccination confidence, and flu vaccination intention. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of assessing both the framing used in social marketing or health communication materials and the approach used to support the framing. It is likely that the effectiveness of framing is affected by the visuals and text used to reinforce the brand promise conveyed by the framing, irrespective of whether it is positive or negative